The watchers scarcely heard the words; but when she sank back upon her pillow, and smiled as though she had found the peace which pa.s.ses understandings they knew that she had gone.
Lettice stayed on at Birchmead until she had seen Alan"s aunt carried to the churchyard, and laid under the shadow of the great yew trees.
Aunt Bessy"s death changed her plans. It was no longer necessary for Alan to undertake so long a journey, and in his weak condition it might be better that he should not attempt it. But what was to be done? She had promised Aunt Bessy to "take care of him." Haw could she do it? How do it, at least, without outraging the feelings of her brother and her friends? She loved Sydney, although she had long ago ceased to be greatly in sympathy with him, and she had looked forward to the day when she could make friends with his wife and--by and by--interest herself in their children. She knew that Sydney would be against her in this. Ought she to consider him? Should his opinion weigh with her or not?
She was still pondering this question on the day after the funeral, when something happened which went far towards removing her hesitation. She was sitting in Mrs. Chigwin"s garden, which was warm and dry in the afternoon sun. Mrs. Chigwin was indoors, vigorously "straightening" the house. Milly was sewing a frock for her child, and the child itself was tumbling about on a soft rug at her feet.
During the past few days, little had been said respecting Milly"s future. Mrs. Bundlecombe"s death had thrown her history into the background, and she had not seemed eager to obtrude it on any of her friends. Lettice"s a.s.surance that she might safely stay where she was at present seemed to satisfy her. She had lost her briskness--her occasional pertness--of manner; she was quiet and subdued, attaching herself with dog-like fidelity to Lettice"s steps, and showing that no satisfaction was so great as that of being allowed to wait on her. But her submissiveness had something in it which pained Lettice, while it touched the deepest fibres of pity in her heart.
She was vaguely wondering what it was that pained her--why there should be that touch of something almost like subserviency in Milly"s manner, as if to make up for some past injury--when her eyes were arrested by a locket, which, tied by a black ribbon round Milly"s neck, had escaped from the bosom of her dress, and now hung exposed to view.
It contained a portrait of Sydney"s face, evidently cut from a photograph by the girl herself.
A flood of light entered Lettice"s mind; but she took her discovery with outward calmness. No thought of accusing or upbraiding Milly ever occurred to her. Why should it? she would have said. It was not Milly who had been to blame, if the girl"s own story were true. It was Sydney who had been guilty of the blackest treachery, the basest of all crimes.
She thought for a moment of his wife, with pity; she looked with a new interest and tenderness at the innocent child. She had no certainty--that was true; but she had very little doubt as to the facts of the case. And, at any rate, she allowed her suspicion to decide her own course of action. Why need she care any longer what Sydney desired for her? His standard was not hers. She was not bound to think of his verdict--now. He had put himself out of court. She was not sure that she should even love him again, for the whole of her pure and generous nature rose-up in pa.s.sionate repudiation of the man who could basely purchase his own pleasure at the expense of a woman"s soul, and she knew that he had thenceforth lost all power over her. No opinion of his on any matter of moral bearing could ever sway her again. The supreme scorn of his conduct which she felt impelled her to choose her own line of action, to make--or mar--for herself her own career.
It was one of those moments in which the action of others has an unexpectedly vivifying result. We mortals may die, but our deed lives after us, and is immortal, and bears fruit to all time, sometimes evil and sometimes good. If the deed has been evil in the beginning, the fruit is often such as we who did it would give our lives, if we had the power, to destroy.
Thus Sydney"s action had far-off issues which he could not foresee. It ruled the whole course of his sister"s afterlife.
There was a light shawl on Milly"s thin shoulders. Lettice took one end of it and drew it gently over the telltale locket. Then, unmindful of Milly"s start, and the feverish eagerness with which her trembling hand thrust the likeness out of sight, she spoke in a very gentle tone: "You will take cold if you are not more careful of yourself. Have you thought, Milly, what you are to do now? You want to earn a living for yourself and the child, do you not?"
Milly looked at her with frightened, hopeless eyes. Had Miss Lettice seen the locket, and did she mean to cast her off for ever? She stammered out some unintelligible words, but the fear that was uppermost in her mind made her incapable of a more definite reply.
"You must do something for yourself. You do not expect to hear from your child"s father again, I suppose?" said Lettice.
"He said--he said--he would send me money--if I wanted it," said Milly, putting up one hand to shade her burning face; "but I would rather not!"
"No, you are quite right. You had better take nothing more from him--unless it is for the child. But I am thinking of yourself. I am going back to London the day after to-morrow, and perhaps I may take a small house again, as I did before. Will you come with me, Milly?"
This offer was too much for the girl"s equanimity. She burst into tears and sobbed vehemently, with her head upon her hands, for two or three minutes.
"I couldn"t," she said at last. "Oh, you"re very good, Miss Lettice--and it isn"t that I wouldn"t work my fingers to the bone for you--but I couldn"t come."
"Why not?"
"I deceived you before. I--I--should be deceiving you again. If you knew--all, you would not ask me."
"I think I should, Milly. Perhaps I know more of your story than you have told me. But--at present, at any rate--I do not want to know more.
I am not going to question you about the past. Because you cannot undo what is past, dear, however much you try, but you _can_ live as if it had never happened; or, better still, you can live a n.o.bler life than you had strength to live before. Sorrow makes us stronger, Milly, if we take it in the right way. You have your little one to live for; and you must be brave, and strong, and good, for her sake. Will you not try?
Will it not be easier now to look forward than to look back? I used to teach you out of an old Book that speaks of "forgetting the things that are behind." You must forget the things that lie behind you, Milly, and press forward to the better life that lies before you now."
The girl listened with an awed look, upon her face.
"I am afraid," she murmured.
"Forget your fear, dear, with the other things that you have to forget, and gather up your strength to make your little girl"s life a good and happy one. In that way, good will come out of evil--as it so often does.
Will you try?"
"Yes," said Milly, "I"ll try--if you will help me--and--forgive me."
"You will come with me, then," Lettice rejoined, in a more cheerful tone. "You can bring your child with you, and you shall have money enough to clothe her and yourself; but you know, Milly, you must be ready to work and not to be idle. Then I shall be able to help you."
Milly was glad enough to be persuaded. She had learned a sad and bitter lesson, but she was the wiser for it.
"I shall be able to work better for you than I did at Maple Cottage,"
she said, with touching humility. "You see I know more than I did, and I shall have more heart in my work. And--" with sudden vehemence--"I would work for _you_, Miss Lettice, to my life"s end."
So it was arranged that they were to go up to London together. Mrs.
Chigwin moaned a little about her prospect of loneliness. "But there,"
she said, "I am not going to make the worst of it. And n.o.body that has a garden is ever really lonely, unless she has lost her self-respect, or taken to loving herself better than her fellow-creatures. By which," she added, "I do not mean snails and sparrows, but honest and sensible flowers."
BOOK VI.
SUCCESS.
"May I reach That purest heaven, be to other souls The cup of strength in some great agony, Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love, Beget the smiles that have no cruelty, Be the sweet presence of a good diffused And in diffusion ever more intense.
So shall I join the choir invisible Whose gladness is the music of the world."
GEORGE ELIOT.
CHAPTER x.x.xIII.
AT THE PRISON GATE.
Months had pa.s.sed since Lettice had written a page of her story. The arrival of the Daltons at Florence had interrupted her at a critical point. She had not yet acquired the mechanic art of stopping and going on again as at the turn of a handle, in obedience to a law of demand and supply; and she would probably have been unable to gather up her threads and continue the old woof, even if she had made the effort. But she had not made the effort, and now that she was back in London again it seemed less possible than ever that she should sit down and make it.
This was a serious matter, for the book was to have been done to order.
She had undertaken to furnish the whole of the ma.n.u.script by the middle of November, and now the time had come when she was obliged to admit that this was quite impracticable. She had hoped to put such a constraint upon herself at Birchmead as would have enabled her to fulfil her promise in the spirit, and to ask a fortnight"s grace for the completion of the ma.n.u.script. But circ.u.mstances had prevented her from writing a single line, and she gave up the idea as hopeless.
So when she came up to London, three days before the end of October, she called upon the publisher with whom she had made her agreement, and confessed her inability to keep her word. Mr. MacAlpine was polite, but at the same time evidently vexed. If Miss Campion had been ill he was very sorry to hear it, but he liked to be able to rely on the engagements which he made.
"Pray don"t let it trouble you," he said, seeing that her face had begun to fall. "When do you think you can be ready? I must have your next story, at any rate. Take another three months."
"That is very good of you," said Lettice. "I think I can promise it before the end of January."
So it was settled, and Lettice went away contented.
The discovery which she had made in regard to Sydney and Emily Harrington had destroyed her former scruples as to the displeasure which Sydney might feel if he were to hear what she now contemplated. She had no wish to punish her brother. She thought he had been cruel, and indifferent to the suffering which he had caused; but she was not moved by anything like a vindictive feeling towards him. She had simply lost the scruples which had beset her, and there was no longer a desire in her mind to avoid a mere semblance of unconventionality for his sake.
She had chosen three rooms on the ground-floor of a house in a long and dreary terrace, the windows of which looked across an intervening waste to the walls of Alan"s prison; and here she watched and waited.